TUV SUD committed to supporting China's industrial upgrading

Often regarded as the Chinese version of Germany's "Industry 4.0" project, the "Made in China 2025" strategy will help China become "a great power" in the manufacturing business, said a German industry expert.

The two programs have many things in common, said Axel Stepken, chairman of the board of management of TUV SUD AG.

"They are both proposed and led by government organizations, and related to a country's long-term development or upgrading strategy," he said.

"They both aim at deepened integration of digitization and manufacturing to strengthen a country's industry competitiveness."

However, he noted some differences between the two national initiatives.

"The Chinese strategy focuses on restructuring and upgrading across 10 key sectors, while the German version emphasizes smart factories and smart manufacturing," he said. "'Made in China 2025' is about the application od numerical control systems while 'Industry 4.0' focuses on standard establishment and service-oriented manufacturing."

As an international expert in testing, inspection, certification and consulting business, TUV SUD is "dedicated to providing safety, quality and sustainability solutions that add tangible economic value to our customers", Stepken said.

"By providing consistent and reliable services to different players along the supply chain, we partner with our customers to achieve long-term benefits while meeting their safety and quality objectives."

TUV SUD is the only testing and certification body chosen as a "Brand of the Century" in Germany, along with many iconic German names in other businesses, such as Zeiss, Porsche and Lufthansa. It has gained wide recognition among global consumers.

As the most important strategic market for the company outside Germany, TUV SUD is present in 40 locations in China with about 3,000 employees there.

Stepken said one of the company's focuses has been, and will continue to be, how to introduce advanced technologies and services to China, to help the country restructure its industry system and promote innovation.

"In the process, we will keep attempting to integrate global experience with China's local demands, and pay more attention to those emerging sectors," he said.

He said China is transforming and upgrading its manufacturing to quickly become a significant and powerful country for modern equipment manufacturing.

In addition to independent, professional, high-quality, targeted testing and certification services, he said TUV SUD would like to introduce more details about the core idea behind "Industry 4.0" for Chinese companies to help accomplish the "Made in China 2025" plan.

"We are good at supporting innovations: to follow the trend of environmental protection and low carbon emissions; establish a professional laboratory network across the country; offer specialized training or lectures for local clients; and partner with local companies to support quality improvement," he said.

Since China's "reform and opening-up" policy started, the export trade industry has developed rapidly. The trade enterprises need timely technical support and assistance to fulfill foreign standards and requirements.

"As a leading third-party certification and testing institution, TUV SUD can help enterprises identify problems early, develop solutions quickly, and support their production process as well as provide value-added services through continuous cooperation," Stepken said.

"One of the fundamental concerns with Industry 4.0 is data security," Stepken said. "The increasing interconnectivity of production systems and the processing of large volumes of data present new challenges to industry as smart production systems are more vulnerable to malicious attacks, sabotage and espionage."

Many developing countries are making development by leaps and bounds thanks to innovation. Among them is China, which, with rapid development in IT, has made other emerging economies realize the importance of technical innovation in economic growth, he said.

A number of innovation-friendly policies, including the "Made in China 2025" and "Internet Plus" strategies are becoming new driving forces to improve development quality, he added.

He suggested a number of areas China and Germany should focus on in their future cooperation, such as electric cars, new energy, energy efficiency, smart buildings and smart infrastructures, rail and medical devices.

He added that both countries have common demands and challenges in these fields.

The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Chinese leaders is another field the German company is interested in.

The initiative "is becoming one of the most practical international strategies in the 21st century", the chairman said. "The initiative leads to huge prospective benefits to both China and the European Union and will create great cooperation potential between China and Germany."

The initiative is also "open and inclusive", giving an ideal solution for small Chinese companies that want international expansion.

"TUV SUD will spare no effort to provide support and assistance to those companies so that they can win larger room for cooperation in the framework of the initiative," Stepken said.

zhangzhao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/29/2015 page13)